Dentro dos meus braços // In my arms
Os abraços hão de ser milhões de abraços // The hugs will become millions of hugs
Apertado assim, colado assim, calado assim // Tight like so; entwined like so; hushed, like so
Abraços e beijinhos, e carinhos sem ter fim // Hugs and kisses and caresses without end
Que é pra acabar com esse negócio de você viver sem mim // Which is to put an end to this nonsense of you living without me!

(repeat)

—
“Garota de Ipanema”(1962, Tom Jobim & Vinicius de Moraes)
—

—

Olha que coisa mais linda // Look, what a most beautiful thing
Mais cheia de graça // Most full of grace
É ela a menina // It’s her, the girl
Que vem e que passa // That appears and passes by
Num doce balanço // In a sweet sway
A caminho do mar // On her way to the sea

Moça do corpo dourado // The girl with that body of gold
Do sol de Ipanema // From the sun of Ipanema
O seu balançado é mais que um poema // Her sashay is more than a poem
É a coisa mais linda que eu já vi passar // It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen go by

Ah, se ela soubesse // Oh, if she only knew
Que quando ela passa /That when she passes by
O mundo inteirinho se enche de graça // The whole wide world swells up with grace
E fica mais lindo // And grows more beautiful
Por causa do amor // On account of love

—
“O amor em paz” (1961, Tom Jobim & Vinicius de Moraes)
—

—

Eu amei // I loved
E amei, ai de mim, muito mais // I loved, woe to me, much more
Do que devia amar // Than I ought to have loved
E chorei // And I cried
Ao sentir que iria sofrer // Sensing that I would suffer
E me desesperar // And grow desperate

Foi então // That was when
Que da minha infinita tristeza // Out of my infinite sadness
Aconteceu você // You came along
Encontrei em você // I found in you
A razão de viver // My reason for living
E de amar em paz // And for loving in peace
E não sofrer mais // And never suffering again
Nunca mais // Never again
Porque o amor // Because love
É a coisa mais triste // Is the saddest thing
Quando se desfaz // When it falls apart
O amor é a coisa mais triste // Love is the saddest thing
Quando se desfaz // When it falls apart

Bossa nova classics are some of the songs curious listeners search for the most, so here are a few of the standards. And as you can see, the Portuguese lyrics differ significantly from their respective English versions (“No more blues“; “Girl from Ipanema“; “Once I loved“).

So much has been written about bossa nova that I think my posts on bossa nova songs are probably more valuable just for the literal translation of the lyrics, in part because there are so many different stories out there – even in generally reliable sources – that it’s hard to feel confident about the veracity of many of them. But below I provide a little commentary on each of these songs.

A “lavadeira” like the ones João Gilberto says he was inspired by.

João Gilberto liked to say he developed his innovative bossa-nova rhythm on the guitar in imitation of the rhythmic sway of the hips of the lavadeiras (laundry women) in Juazeiro, his home town in Bahia. He has also always insisted that bossa nova isn’t a genre; it’s just sambas performed with a little added twist – the new bossa of his guitar and voice. As you know, that bossa — whether it was the result of an epiphany he had while watching the lavadeiras of Juazeiro, or the culmination of a trend in Brazilian music that he managed to capture and express — turned the Brazilian music scene on its head in 1958, and in turn, quickly swept the United States off its feet.

“Chega de Saudade” was the title track on João Gilberto’s seminal 1958 album that is considered the cornerstone of bossa nova. Tom Jobim summed up the importance of the album and João Gilberto’s influence on the Brazilian music scene in his clear-sighted text in the liner notes. At the time, his affirmations seemed exaggerated to many consumers who had barely heard of 27-year-old Gilberto: “In almost no time, he [João Gilberto] has influenced an entire generation of arrangers, guitarists, musicians and singers,” Tom wrote.

Funnily enough, according to Tom, quoted in A Canção no Tempo, this song — which casts off saudade in its lyrics — is nostalgic in its very construction, and not really the best representative of anything “nova”: “Its introduction recalls those traditional introductions of ensembles of guitar and cavaquinho … It has all of the classic modulations of old music… It’s a nostalgic song that’s rejecting saudade!”

But the version released on João Gilberto’s album was indeed bossa nova, with João Gilberto’s rhythmically innovative guitar strokes woven together with his soft style of singing and the simplicity of the lyrics — including the rhyme of peixinhos (fishies) with beijinhos (kissies), which raised more than a few critical eyebrows.

“Chega de Saudade” was first released on Elizeth Cardoso’s landmark album Canção do amor demais, six months prior to Gilberto’s Chega de Saudade, and on that album already represents a strong precursor to bossa nova, with João Gilberto playing his signature guitar accompaniment. Cardoso’s album is considered a “bridge” to the bossa-nova period that came into swing with Chega de Saudade.

22 September 1963: Lyrics published in Jornal do Brasil column “Sing along with Radio JB”

Tom and Vinicius said that “Garota de Ipanema” was inspired by a teenage girl who they often admired as she passed by Bar Veloso, a bar on the street where she lived where the two were devoted patrons in the early ’60s. The bar has since taken the name of the song. In a 1965 interview with the magazine Manchete, Vinicius identified the girl as Heloísa (Helô) Menezes Pais Pinto (Helô Pinheiro, after marriage), saying: “For her we composed, with the utmost respect and speechless enchantment, the samba that put her in headlines around the world and turned our dear ‘Ipanema’ into a magical word for foreign listeners.”

The song wasn’t thrown together on a napkin in Bar Veloso, though. Both Tom and Vinicius labored carefully over their respective parts and, together with João, presented the version they were pleased with during the show Encontro, which debuted its forty-five day run at the boîteAu Bon Gourmet on 2 August 1962. During the show, the trio included a playful intro to “Garota de Ipanema” that could actually serve as an introduction to much of bossa nova:

Vinicius de Moraes with Helô Pinheiro (1960s)

João Gilberto: “Tom e se você fizesse agora uma canção que possa nos dizer, contar o que é o amor…” (Tom, how about if you were to make a song right now that might tell us, explain what love is…)

Vinicius de Moraes: “Para essa canção se realizar, quem dera o João para cantar” (For this song to come to be, if only we could have João to sing…)

João Gilberto: “Ah, mas quem sou eu? Eu sou mais vocês. Melhor se nós cantássemos os três” (Ah, but who am I? I prefer the two of you. Best for all three of us to sing!)

…Olha que coisa mais linda, mais cheia de graça…

21 August 1964: “Brazil seen from afar” column in Rio’s Diário das Noticias newspaper features news of “Garota de Ipanema,” the “latest champion of album sales in the United States, beating out the Beatles’ ‘A Hard Day’s Night.'”

“Garota de Ipanema” was released in early 1963 on the Phillips LP A Bossa dos Cariocas, and six months later Tom introduced it to American listeners on the Verve LP The Composer of Desafinado Plays. At the end of ’63, Verve released the Astrud Gilberto/Stan Getz single “Girl from Ipanema” (with the title taken from the new English-language version, by Norman Gimbel), and then in 1964, the tremendously influential album Getz/Gilberto, which changed the musical landscape around much of the world, became the first Grammy-Award-winning album from non-American artists and propelled “Garota de Ipanema” and the amateur Astrud Gilberto to enduring international stardom.

Finally, I don’t have much to say about “O amor em paz,” except thatthe harmony and lyrics are brilliantly complementary in this song, shifting between minor and major modes as the lyrics shift between notes of sadness and joy. João Gilberto released the song on his self-titled LP in 1961.

A little nook, a guitar
This love, a song
To make the loved one happy
Plenty of calm to think, and to have time to dream
Through the window I see Corcovado, Redentor, how lovely

I want life like this always, with you near me,
Until the old flame dies out
And I who was sad, disbelieving in this world,
Upon finding you I found out what happiness is, my love.

—

The apartment where Tom Jobim wrote Corcovado, and a picture of him inside. Photos via culturabrasil.com.br.

This song is an icon of the bossa nova genre, which was both adored and derided for its focus on superficialities of life in Rio: beaches, breezes, beers, beautiful views, music and love.

Tom Jobim wrote both the melody and the lyrics. Initially the song began, “A cigarette, a guitar,” but the mention of a cigarette made João Gilberto uncomfortable when he was recording the song for the album O amor, o sorriso e a flor. He told Tom a cigarette was something rotten, and convinced him to change the verse to “A little nook, a guitar”; it became one of the best known and most sung verses of bossa nova.

View of Corcovado similar to the view from Tom Jobim’s window in Ipanema in 1960.

Corcovado, the mountain where Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue stands, could be seen from the window of Tom Jobim’s apartment at Rua Nascimento Silva 107, where he lived with his wife Tereza from 1953 – 1962. The line in Portuguese about the window would translate more literally to, “From the window one sees Corcovado – Redentor …” Shortly after Tom wrote the song a new building blocked the view.

The English version of the song (sung here by Frank Sinatra) was written by Gene Lees, and represents one of the best English-language versions of the bossa-nova repertoire.

Main sources for this post: Chega de Saudade: A História e as Histórias de Bossa Nova, by Ruy Castro; Histórias de Canções: Tom Jobim by Wagner Homem; and A Canção no Tempo: 85 Anos de Músicas Brasileiras, vol 2 by Jairo Severiano and Zuza Homem de Mello

I’ve never dreamed of you, I’ve never gone to the movies
I don’t like samba, I don’t go to Ipanema
I don’t like rain, I don’t like sun
I never called you up, why, if I knew?
I never attempted – and would never dare – the sweet nothings
That I learned with you
No, Lígia, Lígia

To go out with you holding hands on a serene afternoon
A cold beer in a bar in Ipanema
Walk along the beach down to Leblon
I’ve never fallen in love, I’d never be able to marry you
I would suffer such pain inevitably just to lose you in the end

You come close to me with your peculiar ways, and I say yes
But your brown eyes fill me with more fear than a ray of sun
Lígia, Lígia

— Interpretation–

Tom Jobim at Ipanema Beach, c. 1968

Tom Jobim used to say that any song with a woman’s name just stirred up trouble. He cited the case of Dorival Caymmi’s “Marina,” which provoked threats to Caymmi from an angry husband who thought the song had been written for his wife.

And indeed “Lígia” caused some problems for Tom, since the name happened to be the name of his close friend Fernando Sabino’s wife.

In interviews over the years following the release of “Ligia,” Tom avoided the subject or denied that the song was written for Sabino’s wife, Lygia Marina de Moraes. But in a 1988 interview with Ruy Castro for Playboy, Tom hinted that his denials could be interpreted in the same way as the denials in the song: “Fernando Sabino is a good friend, I get along really well with him and his wife, Lygia. They come to my house, I want all the best for them and, naturally, Lygia is a very beautiful woman and all that. What exists in “Lígia” is the following: something that you deny so much that ultimately it turns into an affirmation – a supreme affirmation of love. ‘I’ve never dreamed of you, I’ve never gone to the cinema… when I called you… it was just an illusion, I ripped up your name.’ That is to say, I’m not even close to Lygia.”Continue reading “Lígia”→